In 1961 Patrick Macnee, who had recently decided to give up acting to concentrate on a career as a producer, was offered a co-starring role in a spin-off to the series Police Surgeon. Feeling no great urge to return to acting, Macnee demanded a larger salary than he believed the series producers would be willing to pay. The producers, however, called his bluff, paid him the big money, and coaxed him out of retirement. Such twists of fate become history. Soon Macnee was supporting "Police Surgeon" star Ian Hendry in the new crime drama The Avengers, as John Steed, man of mystery. After Hendry's departure from the series, Macnee's Steed became the central charactor. (Sadly, none of the Hendry episodes seem to have survived the bulk erasers of short sighted networks and studios.) Paired with a variety of, mostly glamorous, sidekicks, Steed went on to battle the most bizarre villains, in some of the most ingenious stories, in telly history. In many ways the Avengers would be better described as a crime-fantasy series.
Steed's companions included Dr. Martin King (Jon Rollason), Catherine Gale (future bond girl Honour Blackman), Emma Peel (the legendary Diana Rigg), and Tara King (Canadian actress Linda Thorson). Of the companions, Diana Riggs's Emma Peel is by far the most popular and most fondly remembered. It has to be said that the leads' wardrobes, Steed's signaure bowler hat and brolly, the ladies' penchants for leather cat suits and the like, are other of the series most beloved features,
The original Avengers ran for seven series between 1961 and 1969, including a stint on American network television. Macnee reprised the role of John Steed opposite AbFab's Joanna Lumly and Gareth Hunt for 1976's "The New Avengers." In 1998 a new generation of Avengers is coming to the big screen with Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman taking on the lead roles as Steed and Peel. Hardcore Avengers fans will doubtless appreciate the film's continuation of the series' habit of unusual and inspired supporting casting chioces (Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Donald Sutherland and John Thaw are but a handful of faces from the series) with comedic genius Eddie Izzard and sobriety-challanged rocker Shaun Ryder joining Sean Connery as the films villains.
The Avengers on the Web:
James Dawe has created not only the finest Avengers site but one of the top telly fan sites on the Web. Don't even try to take it all in on just one visit. The Unofficial Avengers Website
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